What It Doesn't Mean
by DramioneLurver
Summary: Susan Bones is most definitely a Hufflepuff. What's a Hufflepuff? Seriously? Well, there are certainly things that a Hufflepuff isn't, in case you were wondering. Who's Susan Bones? Okay, now you're making me question your mental state.


**Disclaimer: You'll never get me to say it! It's depressing, that's why! Who wants to go around be constantly reminded of the fact that they don't own Harry Potter? Not me, whether it's true or not. Okay, sure: it is. So what?**

**Aw, man. I said it.**

**A/N: Um, this is what happens when the author is sleep deprived. And forgot about a challenge until the day after it was due. And majorly sleep deprived. And practically brain dead due to the draining power of school. This was written for the Four Houses Competition, for the Hufflepuff round, with the character of Susan Bones, genre of parody, and the quote: "Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor." All feedback is adored! Craved, even!**

**Now… I've tried something strange here. It's a parody… but it's serious. Kind of.**

**Yeah, my thoughts exactly.**

Early one bright spring morning…

What? Yes, they have bright spring mornings in England! Now, if you please…

Early one bright spring morning, Susan Bones…

What? No, Susan Bones is not an Original Character! She went to Hogwarts the same year as Harry Potter! Her aunt is mentioned multiple times! Her sorting was specifically recollected by the very same Harry Potter! She was a Hufflepuff for Merlin's sake!

Moving on…

Early one bright spring morning, Susan Bones found herself perched at the edge of a rather high cliff, where she…

Excuse me? Did you just call me what I think you called me? Of course there is such a cliff on the Hogwarts Grounds! Just because you haven't seen it with your own two eyes… Well, transform me into a letter and mail me to Merlin… What a mob of suspicious, obnoxious interrupters we have here. Now, if you don't mind, I was trying to tell you the story of Susan Bones.

Well, part of it, that is. I sincerely doubt you want me to start with her conception… Yes, yes, all right! I told you I _wasn't _going to do so, didn't I? No need to get your knickers all twisted in a bunch.

And please, no more interruptions.

And yes, those annoying smirks count.

They distract me, that's why! Now shut up!

Ahem.

Early one bright spring morning, Susan Bones found herself perched at the edge of a rather high cliff, where she had been seated since even earlier that morning, before the sun rose. Soft shivers still shuttered through her body in an effort to warm her pale skin. Direct sunlight would have helped much more a lot faster, but the girl seemed fixed to the spot.

Beneath the shade of a conveniently placed tree, her eyes were unfocused, both looking at nothing in particular and seeing everything before her in its entirety.

The castle looked so small from way up there.

Didn't I tell you to stop interrupting me with your obnoxious questions? Yes, that would have to mean she was rather far away and rather high. Why do you _care_ how she got up there or how she would get down? She's a witch! Maybe she _flew! Creative license, I tell you! Creative license!_

Ahem.

Yes.

The castle looked so small from way up there. So insignificant.

And that, my dear friends, is exactly what occupied Susan Bones's mind that morning.

There, in front of her, stood a castle that saw decades, generations, centuries, ages, eras, millennia melt away, all while it stood firm. People died. Wars were fought. Governments rose and fell. But the castle remained unchanging.

How different, then, could the people that walked its halls be?

How different, then, could the attitudes and dreams and tribulations of the original students be from those who were sleeping in that very moment within its walls?

Some people, her own mother (a _Ravenclaw_), would probably point out that the people were drastically different because society had changed. People were _civilized_ now. They had _manners_ and discouraged _racism_ and had more _freedoms_ and everyone was _literate_ and all that junk.

But Susan…

Just shut up about the Susan questions, will you? I've been trying to ignore you for quite a while, but it's really starting to irritate me. She exists. She thought these thoughts. Why do you doubt?

Now, returning to _Susan_, what's _important_ here…

But Susan just saw the deaths still happening. The war all around them. The government that was failing and being replaced.

Civilization, she thought, wasn't something that society had.

But maybe, she pondered, civilization wasn't something society _could _have.

Perhaps – just perhaps, mind you – civilization was the fact that they were trying to become better. Civilization was a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. It was the fact that society was on the journey that mattered, not the depressing fact that they hadn't yet reached their practically intangible destination.

And replacing her view of the world with such a frame, she found that she could accept the faults of the human race. She could recognize its disappointments as improvements from a past time when things were worse. She could look forward with hope to the days when her children walked the halls of the castle in front of her.

After all, maybe the castle was a little cleaner now. With softer sheets. And beautiful paintings.

For the last time, I'm sure that Susan Bones was an actual student in Harry's year.

She was just a Hufflepuff.

And to many, that practically meant she was always smiling and happy and gentle and kind. The invisibility only kicked in when she was cross, skipped class, screamed at her parents, talked back to teachers, insulted first years, or cried.

To history, that practically meant she didn't matter. She would never be the warrior, the strategist, or the intellectual.

It also meant that these things I just described to you didn't happen.

After all, she wasn't sneakily sly, so she couldn't possibly have evaded the teachers and prefects to escape the castle before students were allowed on the Grounds. She wasn't brave, so she couldn't have possibly flown to the top of that far away cliff. She wasn't smart, so she couldn't possibly have thought those thoughts.

But that didn't stop her, now did it?

She snuck out, she flew, she thought.

Then she watched the clouds drift by as she laid in the middle of the meadows of Hogwarts, utterly abandoning all thoughts of the classes she was missing.

… What? Yes, Hogwarts has meadows! Do you think I'd tell you about them if they didn't actually exist?

People these days.


End file.
